30 comments:

It must be getting tough for the warmers, they take their support where ever they can get it:

DUBAI (AFP) – Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden lectured the US and other industrial nations on climate change, and urged a dollar boycott in response to American “slavery,” in a fresh verbal assault broadcast Friday.

Apparently the IPCC has given up on peer reviewed science, not just on the glaciers either:

A STARTLING report by the United Nations climate watchdog that global warming might wipe out 40% of the Amazon rainforest was based on an unsubstantiated claim by green campaigners who had little scientific expertise. - London Sunday Times

justanothermarxistscam - I for one never believed the claims about the Himalayan glaciers all melting within 25 years. These are the youngest, and therefore highest and coldest mountains in the world, and is these were to melt, what hope is there for the other mountain chains?

I've also posted here (among other places) that I think the current levels of CO2 we generate are just fine, and there is no need to worry. In fact I think we can double the level of CO2 we burn and there will be little effect on our climate.

But the problem is that for the past 150 years of industrialization, only 10% of the world’s population (it did start with 5% in the 1850’s) contributed over 90% of the pollution. Over the next few decades, China, India, Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico, Pakistan, and a number of other developing nations will all become fully industrialized. Google these and check out their populations, then add them all together and compare to those of the current western industrialized nations. The citizens of these developing nations know how we live, they all have TV’s – and they want our lifestyle and we have no right to tell them they can’t have it.

By 2050 all of these developing nations will sextuple the size of the world’s population responsible for CO2 generation and other more serious pollutants. I don’t know about you, but even with my optimism I don’t think we can survive that.

"Over the next few decades, China, India, Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico, Pakistan, and a number of other developing nations will all become fully industrialized."

And these countries plan to do nothing to reduce emissions. China wont even allow third party verification. India and China had planned to walk out from Copenhopeless if asked to cut emissions. Under the Copenhopeless treaty they would have received payments from the developed countries for doing nothing.

By 2050 all of these developing nations will sextuple the size of the world’s population responsible for CO2 generation and other more serious pollutants. I don’t know about you, but even with my optimism I don’t think we can survive that.

That's actually a good point. But a couple of things should be said.

The capacity of CO2 to absorb IR follows a logarithmic scale. That's why everybody's talking about climate sensitivity as the amount of warming from a doubling of CO2. We have not yet doubled the CO2 from pre-industrial levels, but that could come soon. But, the point is, to have the same effect (that is, very little) as the amount of CO2 we've already pumped in the atmosphere, we would need to double our current levels. And so sextupling is less worrying then it might sound as it amounts to doubling a bit more than twice.

Also, sextupling sounds a lot like what Pachauri's fictional 'climate scientist' is up to in his new novel.

You also assume that developing economies will continue to develop at the current pace - which for their sake, I hope they do, but its not clear that they will.

You also assume that we will fail to develop more efficient and cleaner technologies.

In any event, the solution is certainly not to give billions of dollars with no strings attached to the governments of 3d world nations which are almost all dictators.

In any event, the solution is certainly not to give billions of dollars with no strings attached to the governments of 3d world nations which are almost all dictators.

I never suggested anything of the sort. However just to throw up our hands and allow things to continue as they will for the next 50 years is completely irresponsible. Unless they post otherwise, this is what I figure justanothermarxistscam is suggesting we do.

However just to throw up our hands and allow things to continue as they will for the next 50 years is completely irresponsible.

Of course. And, just as you're not advocating the Copenhagen solution, Im not advocating doing nothing.

But I dont think we're even at the stage where we can start thinking of solutions. We're still at the stage where we're trying to comprehend the climate system.

Slightly off topic but not completely, I highly recommend a recent BBC documentary on chaotic systems: The Secret Life of Chaos, narrated by Jim Al Khalili. I found it fascinating, but it has a somewhat distressing conclusion that trying to predict things such as the climate is impossible (that's not to say that climate science is pointless, but it should give climate scientists the humility they have severely lacked in recent years).

So you understand the climate system perfectly do you? Awesome. So Im sure you expected the recent findings by NASA that the positive water feedback which is the basis for all the alarm is really a figment of the IPCC's imagination. Please, o omniscient one, share your thoughts on this matter.

No it doesn't.

What doesnt? The BBC doc doesnt have that conclusion (actually it does), or do you just think that chaotic systems can be predicted with any accuracy?

BCL,I doubt Jerome believes his own bullshit. I think he just drops by once in a while to engage in the type of lying he was schooled in as a lawyer, and see if he can get away with it. He probably saw justanothermarxistscam and thought he'd encourage him. Poor justanothermarxistscam may or may not be as ethically challenged as Jerome, but he's obviously dumb as a sack of rocks - Jerome's ideal audience.

Your misrepresentation of science, whether due to dishonesty or credulous reading of anti-science websites, is not a valid arguement for inaction.

Yes well you can sleep soundly at night knowing that I dont actually have a say in whether we will have 'action' or 'inaction'.

Anyways, let me know if you want to have an actual discussion about the actual science of climate change. It should be so easy for you to smite me down with all the facts on your side and 5000 IPCC scientists behind you. It will also allow you to demonstrate that you're capable of more than suggesting that others are ignorant.

Sure. I suppose the difference between the two is the timescale, and I dont think the data on this is all pretty recent, but Im not positive.

But, the most relevant issue raised by the paper is this:

Soloman said it was not clear if the drier atmosphere, which the NOAA report says is the reason global warming fell flat over the last decade, is a natural process or came to be due to human emissions. If the latter is true, carbon dioxide emissions would actually be responsible for a negative feedback that cancels at least some of the warming it causes by pushing water vapor back to the surface of the earth and out of the stratosphere, where it acts as a potent greenhouse gas. According to the report, a 10% decrease in atmospheric water vapor alone was responsible for a 25% drop in predicted temperature increase.

This strikes at the heart of the case for catastrophic warming (and I hope that as strong proponents of this theory, you're at least familiar with the role water vapor plays in IPCC predictions).

Let me know if you want to substantiate your assertions - the BBC series concluding it is impossible to predict climate, for starters.

Of course I would like to substantiate my assertions. BTW, its only an hour long documentary, not a series.

My assertion: I found it fascinating, but it has a somewhat distressing conclusion that trying to predict things such as the climate is impossible

The easiest thing to do would be for you to watch it. It's actually quite interesting, especially if you have an interest in science. Here's part 1 on YouTube. Im sure you'll be able to find the other parts in the 'related videos' bar.

It explains the whole basis of chaos theory, which says that in chaotic systems, of which climate is one, you can never have measurements which are precise enough to predict what the system will be like in a given amount of time. And that even applies to systems which are governed by the simplest of equations. As a bonus, they sh1t on the explanation of chaos theory in Jurassic Park.

They also discuss the work of Lorenz, an american meteorologist who coined the phrase 'butterfly effect'.

They dont actually come out and say 'predictions of global warming are pointless because of the consequences of chaos theory' (I dont even believe that). But, they show the inherent limitations in trying to predict chaotic systems, and climate is a chaotic system.

"Although ultimately chaos will kill a weather forecast, this does not necessarily prevent long-term prediction of the climate. By climate, we mean the statistics of weather, averaged over suitable time and perhaps space scales (more on this below). We cannot hope to accurately predict the temperature in Swindon at 9am on the 23rd July 2050, but we can be highly confident that the average temperature in the UK in that year will be substantially higher in July than in January. Of course, we don’t need a model to work that out – historical observations already give strong evidence for this prediction. But models based on physical principles also reproduce the response to seasonal and spatial changes in radiative forcing fairly well, which is one of the many lines of evidence that supports their use in their prediction of the response to anthropogenic forcing."